“At first I was, to be honest with you, I was reticent to looking at the role because I remember the television series was kind of farcical and silly and pow and zow. I wasn’t really high on it until I talked to the producer and read the script and talked to the director. After that I went, ‘This is different.’ This is as different as the Batman television series as it became the Batman movie series. You can’t compare those two, and nor can you compare this movie version of the Power Rangers to that television series. It’s unrecognizable for the most part. There are tenets of the folklore that you hold onto for sure, but the inspiration is different, and the sensibility of it, and the approach to the film making is completely different.”

When asked if the Batman movies he was talking about were Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Cranston confirmed, but then backpedaled a little bit:

“Yeah, The Dark Knight. I don’t know if the tone is as dark as that because you’re dealing with teenagers. So the appropriateness of that, and real teenage life, and the insecurities of these kids and things like that, and you embrace all of that into a retelling of the Power Rangers. And what you would get is this new version, this new reimagined version.”

Hoo boy. Bryan, buddy, you should probably never use the phrase “tenets of the folklore” when discussing a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie. What happened to the guy who spent half his time on screen dancing around in his tighty whities? You’re playing a giant head in tube that fights a moon witch with superpowered teenagers and giant robots – embrace the absurdity.

The latest tenets of the Power Rangers folklore hit theaters March 24, 2017.